Every decade seems to bring a new miracle solution to what all ails our public education institutions, without embracing education choice. This time, it’s the “Mississippi miracle” — widely studied and praised because of its significant growth in children’s early literacy. However, despite this miracle, which has been over a decade in the making, Mississippi’s test scores remain weak, and the early literacy gains have been less pronounced in the later grades.
Improvements in reading scores are real — the state shifted away from older “balanced literacy,” or guessing methods, to explicit, systematic phonics-based instruction, and it prioritized professional development and placed trained reading coaches inside public elementary schools. Better reading and literacy skills also helped boost comprehension and performance in other subjects, including math, particularly in the early grades.
However, other factors helped lift Mississippi’s fourth grade results. Its third grade retention policy kept some low-scoring students from taking the fourth grade test. Exemptions increased, even as those students showed no improvement the following year. The share of fourth graders classified as having disabilities and receiving testing accommodations rose. Researchers also questioned a poverty adjustment that made the state’s national ranking look better.
Despite the improvement, a large portion of Mississippi students still fail to reach proficient benchmarks on state and national exams in reading and mathematics. While fourth grade improvements have been substantial, eighth grade gains in literacy and math are much smaller. This takes nothing away from Mississippi’s efforts. Because of Mississippi’s high child-poverty rates and low funding, its schools face formidable challenges.
New Orleans offers a better model for improvement.
After Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana remade the city’s public school system into the nation’s first nearly universal public school choice system. First, families were no longer trapped. Parents could apply to any school in the city — by lottery when seats ran short — instead of being consigned by ZIP code to a failing neighborhood school. That single change transformed the system’s culture. Schools had to attract families, keep them and show results.
Most operating dollars followed students and schools as principals and their local school boards controlled their own budgets and staffing and could select an academic program that fit their students. Schools also extended the school day and school year, adding more instructional time, while providing more time for academic and behavioral interventions and enrichment and reducing damaging summer learning loss.
I saw the turnaround from the inside because I helped lead it as superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD), tasked with reopening and transforming New Orleans’ failing schools almost two years after Katrina struck. The improvements were immediate, substantive and sustained. From 2008 to 2013, the share of RSD students scoring basic or above rose by 29 points, against a nine-point growth statewide.
School improvement has continued. Before the storm, New Orleans public schools ranked 49th in the nation. More than 60% were labeled failing, with abysmal test scores, low graduation rates, widespread corruption and financial mismanagement. Today, data reported by Tulane University’s Cowen Institute shows no failing schools in New Orleans for the first time since Louisiana began rating schools. The district earned its highest-ever “B” rating. New Orlean’s improvement has continued even during COVID-19.
Following the initial learning losses, New Orleans students saw major academic recovery. From 2021 to 2024, scores improved 8 percentage points in English and 10 points in math — doubling the state’s average rate of improvement. New Orleans’ success helped Louisiana rank first among states in reading and second in math growth after the pandemic.
Amazingly, New Orleans’ and Louisiana’s gains occurred in a state that ranks, depending on the study, in the mid-30s to about 40th nationally in per-pupil funding, with little improvement since Katrina. According to USAFacts, public schools in Louisiana receive an average of $17,300 per student, $2,600 less than the national average. .
Critics of New Orleans and school choice try to pin test score improvements on the “charter churn” — the rapid closure of low-performing or mismanaged schools, forcing struggling students elsewhere. In reality, most students who returned after Katrina were far below grade level before Katrina, had lost at least a full year of instruction and were also overwhelmingly from low-income families, making New Orleans public student gains even more remarkable.
Skeptics argue that apparent progress relied on changing state test standards and shifting definitions of success rather than actual long-term learning gains. However, Louisiana, unlike other states, raised standards multiple times in the years following Hurricane Katrina, making gains by both New Orleans and the state as a whole even more impressive. The improvement of Louisiana’s public schools, which continued after COVID-19, is evidence of that.
Skeptics claim there were mass firings of teachers, mostly Black educators, that dismantled a generation of community-rooted teachers — and that there was a loss in neighborhood community schools and long bus commutes for children. In reality, teachers released by the old school board after Katrina hit were invited to return while schools that reopened as public charters or later converted did not displace students.
The RSD also supported Louisiana’s private school voucher program, but vouchers had little impact on public school enrollment. With the expanded high-quality choices, the district’s public enrollment steadily grew from roughly 25,000 students just after Katrina to nearly 50,000 by the late 2010s. By contrast, Catholic school enrollment in the Archdiocese of New Orleans has remained relatively flat over time, despite the voucher program.
Mississippi shows that better instruction can raise early reading scores. New Orleans went further by giving all families real school choice, providing school leaders with more freedom to make decisions and creating real consequences for failing schools.
Cities looking to improve primary grade reading should study Mississippi’s. If they want to rebuild and improve an entire school system, they should look to New Orleans.
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Paul Vallas is an adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute. He ran for Chicago mayor in 2023 and was previously budget director for the city and CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
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